On a day like today, a week like this week, a year like this one … it’s hard to focus attention on what’s going on in the Commonwealth. But someone’s gotta mind the store …
Joan Vennochi notes Baker’s reluctance to pick fights with the Trump administration, and — very relevant to a potential ACA repeal — the ongoing fiscal crunch. And she notes the same pattern that we have: An unwillingness to meet the challenge.
In what could be viewed as a gentle knock on Baker’s agenda or lack thereof, [Larry] Summers told the Globe’s Shirley Leung that he has spoken to the governor about some of these matters, and said, “It’s much easier on the outside to feel urgency and vision than it is within the quotidian constraints of governing.”
…
Back at home, Baker will be judged on preserving health care as we know it, fixing the T, supporting public education at all levels, and investing in the next economic initiative for Massachusetts. They all require money. Baker can’t just manage his way to results.
Source: The middle ground is shrinking under Charlie Baker’s feet – The Boston Globe
At some point the “reform before revenue” at the T (for example), runs out of reform. Maybe we’re not there yet. And maybe the real problem is that we’ll never get there. There will never be a good time for a broad vision, because that’s scary and requires confronting interest groups — including taxpayers!
As we’ve said: We have big problems, compounded by the Trump administration’s plutocratic reverse-Robin Hood health care and tax policies. It seems stupid to say that a governor with 70+% approval ratings might be in trouble, but the current “we’re working on that” may not be a compelling message in 2018. Things change.
As Vennochi implies: This state really needs an inclusive model of economic life. We’re playing brilliantly to some strengths, while others are crumbling; and fortunes are changing largely along increasingly bright class lines. How we make a high quality of life accessible to all is our challenge.
hesterprynne says
I think his vision is — let somebody else do it.
Some of those somebody’s being the Raise Up Massachusetts Coalition, which gathered the signatures to get the Fair Share Tax on the ballot next November (pending a second favorable vote by the Legislature), and the Massachusetts Senate, which recently presented a multi-year early education proposal costing $1 billion or more that serves as a policy draft to nudge voters toward approving the tax increase.
http://raiseupma.org/campaigns/fair-share-amendment/
http://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2017/05/massachusetts_senate_lays_out.html
jconway says
Yep-this is why I think that ballot question is the most important tool we have for 2018. Legislature and Governor are both timid (Senate excepted) and this gives them the cover they need to raise revenues. Enlisting Summers as a supporter is an out of the box move Raise Up should consider. Jeff Imelt as well.
jconway says
Also Setti Warren and Bob Massie picked just about the worst week they could to launch their campaigns for Governor.
Christopher says
What makes you say that – drowned out by the DC news?
petr says
Indeed, things do change. And people, too. I was struck by the picture the Globe used to accompany the Vennochi piece. I was so struck I did a pair of google searches: “Charlie Baker 2014′ and ‘Charlie Baker 2017’ and the difference is stark: Charlie Baker has aged dramatically; gone is the youthful, almost carefree, look to be replaced by a decidedly more aged intensity. The hair has gone from a vibrant sandy with a hint of grey, to a lank grey with a hint of sandy. The eyes don’t have that attachment to his smile he used to great affect in the election. Charlie Baker circa 2017, it is evident, is a man under great stress.
But here’s the striking thing: what stress has he been under to affect so dramatic a change? He’s done nothing but punt issues down the road. Where’s the stress in that? Neither Romney nor Patrick, both of whom achieved actual policy in their first three years, were not as ravaged by the job as is Baker,
I wonder if the stress is self-generated? I’ve always known, since Phil Gramm and Newt Gingrich in the mid-90’s, through to George Bush, Dick Cheney and Mitt Romney, and Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell that Republicans were mean-spirited and vicious people who attached themselves to a mean-spirited and vicious ideology. Trump is the undiluted essence of mean-spirited and vicious and so, in that respect, he is the beaux-ideal (sic) of the GOP.
I’ve always suspected that Charlie Baker was, essentially, a nice guy, perhaps even a caring and sensitive guy. Certainly, he’s well outside the mold of procrustean scold which typifies the modern GOP. And now I wonder if this essential charity is at war with the mean-spirited and vicious ideology of his party. Maybe — because he lacks the character to face that about himself — that’s what’s tearing him apart from the inside…? Maybe he’s punting issues down the road because he doesn’t want to fulfill the diktat of his ideology but can’t summon the strength to fight for a policy or polity that is caring and helpful?